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What motivates you?

There are several questions that I get asked on a fairly regular basis. In no particular order:

How did you lose the weight?

What supplements have you tried?

Can you tell me what workouts you did?

What motivates you to keep going?

The last one is always the hardest to answer. Probably because it’s not like fitness has been something I’ve been into for the majority of my life. I didn’t wake up one day and think “You know what would be fun? I’m going to run 15 miles up and down hills, while carrying sandbags and climbing over obstacles.”

Working out is still something that is fairly recent for me. But explaining that drive to push myself is not easy to do. I joke now that all a race needs to do is advertise a shiny finisher medal and a cool t-shirt and I’m in!

But in reality it’s more than that. Because the shiny medal doesn’t wake you up at 6am when it’s 20 degrees out and tell you “We need to go run!” That t-shirt isn’t pushing you to get to the gym even after you’ve had a long day at the office.

But everyone has their motivation. For me, my motivation started because I was unhappy where I was in life, physically. I didn’t like the unhealthy path I was going down, so I changed it. So every day I have that motivation in my head to not make those mistakes again.

Also, my motivation comes from my progress. As I said in my earlier post, when I started I couldn’t run for 20 seconds without stopping. A 10 minute mile seemed like a fantasy. Now I can do 8 minute miles fairly regularly. Am I going to be the next Usain Bolt? Doesn’t look that way. That doesn’t mean that my progress is any less motivational for me.

Same thing applies to Obstacle Course Racing. When I first signed up at Urban Fit, I was blown away by people carrying buckets, climbing ropes, doing various exercises at high intervals. Now I’m one of those people. (Still can’t do as many burpees in 5 minutes as Jon Crosby, though.)

It doesn’t happen every run, or every workout, or every class. But there are times when I’ll push myself past where I’ve been before and then I think “Wow I can do that now!” What seemed almost impossible at one point is now possible.

I post about these things as reminders, but also to hold myself accountable. If I tell everyone my plan is to finish X amount of races, or a certain race in a certain amount of time, that holds me accountable. So when I’m out training and I feel like stopping or quitting, I know I can’t because I told my friends and family what I’m going to do, and I don’t want to let them down.

Knowing what I’ve accomplished to get where I’m at, motivates me.

Thinking about how great it will be to be even better than I currently am, motivates me.

Seeing and hearing from people that my stories help encourage them, motivates me.

Seeing the smile on the face of the kid “I Run For” as I finish another race, motivates me.

Seeing the look on someone’s face as they accomplish something they’ve never done before, motivates me.

My wife, my family, my friends. They’re all my motivation. When I see a guy in a race that has 1 leg, or a guy at the gym with a disability, how can I not push myself when he clearly is giving his all?

So when you see me post something on FB or Twitter or IG and think “What drives him to keep going when it would be so easy to quit”…now you know!